


taillights (remix)

by cave_canem



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Post canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 12:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cave_canem/pseuds/cave_canem
Summary: Neil should have realized by now that Andrew has expensive and dangerous tastes, fast cars and impossible men.Or, Neil thinks his cheap car is enough and Andrew disagrees.





	taillights (remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reneewvlkers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reneewvlkers/gifts).



> This is my gift to reneewvlkers/bramlouisgreenfeld for the aftg remix. The fic remixed is a oneshot posted on tumblr that you can find [here](http://lailadermott.co.vu/post/152942768105/submissions-dont-let-you-do-line-breaks-the-fic)!
> 
> I would like to thank the mods of the challenge because this was a super fun idea. Also, everyone go read Al's fic because they are the bomb.

Having Neil around has made Andrew realize that there are a number of things he cares about that he didn’t consider before. He’s never liked the cold, but it has never really bothered him before past that bone-deep tiredness of the uncomfortable.

Now, he has to stop and think about Neil living alone in his shitty apartment, hours away from Boston and Andrew’s own warm living room.

He thought he knew worry, the sharp tang of it and the betrayal of his own feelings, learned it in a parking lot in Binghamton, but Bee has helped guide him down the path of a different kind of worry. It’s more relaxed, less consuming; a simmering fire rather than a towering flame, but it burns Andrew all the same.

It’s annoying.

Andrew slams the front door on the cold seeping inside the hallway from outside and he thinks of Neil’s pathetic kitchen window, with a fire escape that Neil chose because habits are hard to get rid of. The window doesn’t close properly and when it rains the kitchen smells like wet wood: another excuse for Neil not to stick to a proper diet plan, right next to his poor cooking skills. Andrew collapses on his couch with a carton of ice cream. He might not give a damn about interior decorating, but at least he had the sense to rent an apartment already furnished.

So Andrew spends a lot more time than he’d expected thinking about Neil. He’s not entirely surprised when his phone rings at two in the morning, ten minutes after he’s collapsed on his bed with his coat still on.

He doesn’t need to check the caller ID.

“Did I wake you?” Neil asks instead of hello.

Andrew rolls on his back, toeing off his boots. “I just got back.”

“I thought you were taking a flight just after your game.”

“Delayed.” Andrew glances outside the window. Snow is falling heavily, piles of it covering the ground and growing by the minute. “There’s a snowstorm coming from the north.”

“I know,” Neil says. His tone makes Andrew grow suspicious. “I’m stuck in it ten minutes away from you.”

Andrew closes his eyes, lets himself be tempted, for a second, by the thought of sleep, then heaves himself off the bed.

“Where are you?”

Neil rattles an address as Andrew finds his boots in the dark and slips them on. He didn’t even take off his coat or his scarf: it’s going to be hell with the thermal shock when he steps outside, but he doesn’t care enough to take them off and put them back on for less than a minute. Neil hasn’t said anything but he doesn’t seem surprised that Andrew acts as if he’s coming to get him, which is also suspicious.

“Can you drive?”

“My car broke down,” Neil says.

“How surprising.”

Neil’s car is a dump, some poor excuse for a vehicle which existence Andrew refuses to acknowledge most of the time. He has never even set a foot in it. Really, from someone who parted with enough cash to buy a Maserati, there is no excuse other than a fantastic display of disinterest in the matter.

“I don’t care,” Neil insisted the first time he held the keys. “It’s just a way to drive around.”

“I’m not even sure it can drive,” Andrew said. Then, because he had to take advantage of the situation somehow: “You are not allowed to try and get me to care about Exy anymore.”

Neil conceded. Andrew joined a pro team anyway, because there was nothing else to do. Now they live hours apart, still too far away; Andrew knows Neil feels too lonely, especially since he decided to drive up north in such a weather after practice on a Friday night.

“Are you warm?” Andrew asks as he stomps down the stairs. Waiting for the elevator stuck on the top floor would take nearly as much time and he’s too annoyed to stay still.

“I pulled into a diner’s parking lot when I saw the smoke.”

“Order decaf,” Andrew warns.

“Mmmm.” The silence carries through the lobby and follows Andrew down into his building’s garage. “Oh, they make pie to go. Want anything?”

“Yes. I’m starting the car.”

“Bye.”

They hang up and Andrew programs the navigation system on his phone, ignoring the red alerts for snow. The roads are broad enough near his apartment that they’re clear even at such a late hour; as he leaves behind the hub of the city he has to slow down on melted snow turned to sludge that tends to agglomerate on the middle of the road.

He passes a closed grocery store, then a drugstore, an illuminated but empty gas station, and finally turns into a large parking lot. It’s used by several stores and an ice rink but there is only one other car parked under the light, haphazardly stopped on two spots near the entrance like Neil dragged his car there through its last moments. Andrew checks inside when he passes it, but whatever luggage Neil packed, it’s in the diner with him.

Andrew didn’t expect anything else.

Finding Neil in the diner is easy: the only still person through the movement of the patrons leaving before the worst of the storm and the waiters cleaning tables. He’s sitting in a booth facing the door, his bag next to him on the seat. He hasn’t taken off his coat but he’s shrugged off the strap of his duffel bag, a small concession made to years of safety, past and to come.

Neil sees Andrew before Andrew can see him, having probably tracked his arrival through the windows; he’s halfway out of his seat before the door has even closed.

“Hey,” he says, stopping close enough that the corner of the pie box he’s holding digs slightly into Andrew’s arm.

He smells warm and bitter, like coffee and cigarette smoke. It’s painfully familiar; Andrew’s eyes roam his face to take him in, in spite of his perfect memory.

It’s been a long time since they’ve stood in front of each other like that; there are a number of things Andrew wants to say and do, but it’s not the right moment or place. He feels too aware of the other people in the diner, their own recognizable faces in a city who is known in the Exy world for its tenacious fans. He exhales silently through his nose and circles Neil’s wrist with his own hand, tugging him behind gently.

Andrew cranks up the heat when he climbs into the car and Neil sends him a look, pointedly divesting himself of his coat. He’s not even wearing a scarf: despite his lighter build, he never exhibits Andrew’s repulsion for the cold.

“Why didn’t you take the plane?”

“Same as you,” Neil says, eyes closed and head rolling onto the headrest. “Planes delayed. It would have taken me hours.”

“Because driving all night in your pathetic excuse for a car is so much quicker.”

“Don’t knock the car. It got me here, didn’t it?”

“Smoke from the engine get to your head?”

Neil shrugs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it. We can call a tow truck tomorrow.”

They get to the apartment in silence. Neil drops his bag into the bedroom, steps on his socks, and disappears into the bathroom while Andrew slips into bed with the pie and a fork. He doesn’t feel as tired as he should, Neil’s call having driven him through his body’s sleep cycle.

The pie is strawberry. It’s incongruous in the middle of winter and the crust isn’t as crisp as it was because of the atmospheric humidity, but there’s a side helping of whipped cream in a smaller box, which melts nicely on top of the still warm crust.

“Good?” Neil asks, stepping out of the shower in a cloud of steam.

He slips under the covers and rolls on his side, facing Andrew. His dark hair on the white pillowcase is as familiar a sight as a painful fantasy. Andrew doesn’t resist the temptation to run his hand in it. It’s not particularly soft: years of dyeing and generally taking shit care of his person have left Neil with brittle and split hair. Still, the gesture is soothing for both of them, and Neil closes his eyes before Andrew has even completed the first stroke.

“I missed you,” he says, earnest and low in the dark room.

Andrew scoots down into bed, eyes on the ceiling.

“Mmm,” he answers.

It’s as good as a _me too_ Neil will get. Neil seems to know it, because he falls silent and his breathing evens out shortly after.

* * *

Andrew wakes Neil shortly when he climbs out of bed the next morning. He opens one eye, squints at Andrew dressing in the light coming from the living room through the open door and burrows himself back into the blankets. Andrew leaves without saying anything.

There’s snow on the ground, but not in the excessive amounts Andrew expected. It makes it easier for him to call a tow truck and to leave Neil’s antique car at the junkyard after a brief sweep of its insides.

Neil isn’t big on material possessions: there’s a map stuck in the footwell and a bottle of water rolling around in the glove compartment, an old shopping list written in Robin’s hand crumpled in the cup holder.

The car never has never looked better than it does when Andrew sees it being towed inside the giant field of equally wrecked cars.

Neil is awake when Andrew comes back, looking far too sleepy for a man holding a coffee mug against his chest. He’s dressed in Andrew’s hoodie and a pair of old sweats Andrew’s been trying to get rid of for the past four months and lounges in the late morning sun, eyes closed like the cats in the pictures Nicky sends them. It stirs something in Andrew, seeing Neil so comfortable around his impersonal dark furniture after weeks of unsatisfying phone conversations.

Andrew mutes the old Exy rerun playing on the TV when he steps around the couch; it’s one of his team’s games, before he joined them.

Neil lets out a small hum when Andrew bends over to kiss him and Andrew swallows it readily, mouth curling around affection. He breaks the kiss when Neil’s hand moves to the map and the bottle Andrew is still carrying.

“What—” he starts. Then: “Did you just get rid of my car?”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Andrew says, because this time he’s not taking no for an answer.

Also, he’s his team’s starting goalie for the second year in a row and makes three times as much money as Neil, rookie striker on an average team, does, and that’s without the important cut in his earnings from Ichirou.

Neil should have realized by now that Andrew has expensive and dangerous tastes, fast cars and impossible men.

“Alright,” Neil agrees. “How will I go back?”

Considering his usual reluctance to go back to his own team whenever he travels up north, Andrew would have thought the question would take more time to come into the conversation. His gaze travels to the television.

“The storm’s passed. I’ll book you a plane ticket.”

Neil chucks the map and the bottle aside, dragging Andrew on top of him on the couch. His hands are warm against Andrew’s cold skin: it’s a form of agreement in itself.

It’s a good hour before they think about eating, decide there’s nothing in Andrew’s fridge and dress again to go out. Neil doesn’t say anything as Andrew navigates the streets he knows well, by now, but he smiles easily when Andrew catches his gaze on him. Andrew can read the relaxation in his body language: it’s one more thing Neil learned by living with the Foxes. Andrew doesn’t mind, far from it.

The cafe they stop in is small and quiet even at this time of the day, which is why Andrew chose it. They order quickly and wait in silence for their plates to arrive. This, too, is familiar.

Andrew can spot the exact moment Neil makes eye contact with someone he doesn’t want to see. It would be surprising, seeing as Neil knows no one in Boston, if Andrew wasn’t immediately reminded that they are considered as public figures by Neil’s jersey.

As far as incognito disguises go, wearing Andrew’s jacket is far from the best Neil’s done.

It’s two fans, teenagers with their phones in hand, the kind of people full of illusions who haven’t caught on yet that Andrew and Neil have no interest in interacting with them. Andrew can see Neil’s fake public smile slide on his face with difficulty. He’s not as good at this as Kevin is, and he’s not as unbothered by his public image as Andrew. He actually has a PR team, advice and a contract to respect. Andrew does, too, to a certain extent, only he doesn’t care, because his survival isn’t intrinsically linked with the financial retribution of the world’s interest in him.

That’s probably why the fans go to Neil immediately. Andrew stares in the distance and counts the seconds until their meals arrive.

“Yeah,” he catches, and only because he can hear the smile in Neil’s voice without having to look, “we still talk.”

There are no autographs signed on paper napkins, luckily, and only one photo, in which Andrew is not asked to appear. Really, it only deprives the fan from receiving a cold refusal, which must be why Neil takes it in stride.

The whole thing lasts almost fifteen minutes, which is sixteen too long according to Andrew, but finally the fans leave. Their meals arrive in the next minute, which confirms Andrew’s suspicions that their server was waiting for the photo op to be over. There’s a new quality to her smile as he places their plates in front of them that Andrew ignores entirely: he’s done enough publicity for the day and Neil still doesn’t know how not to keep every aspect of his life under wraps.

* * *

The drive to the airport is quiet the next day. Neil’s plane takes off relatively early, so that if the weather prevents his flight from being on schedule he can still get some sleep before Monday practice.

The lines are long, which is annoying because neither of them cares for crowds, but Andrew is acutely aware of every moment ticking away before Neil’s departure. They stay close to each other, not touching overtly but always in reach for their arms to brush against one another. Neil shoulders his duffel bag, small enough that he bypasses the desk for luggage on hold, and steps in the line for security. Past that point, Andrew won’t be able to follow.

“You don’t have a game in two weeks,” Neil says. “Drive down and we’ll look for a car together.”

Neil’s apartment is within walking distance of the Exy stadium, which is probably how his shitty car lasted so long. Knowing him, he probably thinks not depending on the American public transport service is a comfort rather than a necessity.

“A new car,” Andrew says. “You’ll let me choose.”

“If you want.”

Neil’s small secret smile tells Andrew his phrasing wasn’t incidental, but Andrew doesn’t pick up on it. He finds he does want to, in a way that has become rapidly familiar over the years.

The line presses on slowly. The airport and most flights are full from people still impacted from the delays and the canceled flights of Friday night. Andrew takes the people crowding around them in quickly and dismiss them as easily, focusing on the low tone of Neil’s voice and the warmth of his hand around his wrist.

It’s a shame they can’t smoke indoors, really. To busy his hands and his mind, Andrew slides his fingers under the strap of the duffel bag and tugs slightly.

“Yes?” Neil hums, turning toward him as they approach the parting point.

Words are an expensive currency. Andrew is a parsimonious talker, which is why he means it when he tells Neil: “Call me when you get there.”

“I’ll try and keep my phone on.”

Another joke: since they don’t live in close quarters anymore Neil is much more careful about keeping his phone on and charged.

They part with a light kiss, a brush of the lips, barely there, but it stays with Andrew for longer than he expects.


End file.
